Okay, so I thought I’d attended my last evangelical tent-in-a-sanctuary revival in 1986 when I left private Southern Baptist education. While I mourn the lack of liturgy and ritual in our church service (aka sacrament meeting, for those non-Mormons who aren’t keeping track of the vocabulary and couldn’t care less) and we’re not as silent as the Quakers, I really really really despise the rah rah rah hard-sell religious pep rally motivational seminar worship service.
.
It took me a full 30 seconds into this to figure out this was us and then couldn’t bear to watch another second. What, did we turn into the 700 Club while I wasn’t looking? What happened to the angst-ridden EFY and Youth Conference testimony meetings awash in sweet spirits and tears and Happy Valley Girlesque avowals of eternal gratitude and BFFness?
Sister Dalton, Brother Dahlquist, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re Mormons. We are not evangelicals. Evangelicals curse and hate and spitefully use and persecute us and they always will. They do this for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that we’re not trinitarians and we value works over grace (yeah, LDS types who take umbrage at that—think about that a while before trying to hamstring me with The Miracle of Forgiveness). Stop trying to be them and to curry their favor by emulating them. Oh, sure, they liked us well enough during the Prop 8 bullshit, but then they went back to hating us once we did their dirty work for them. And now half the rest of the world hates us more than they already did.
Who thought this was a good idea? You’re going the wrong direction. We’re fucking weird. Own it. Embrace it.
Hat tip Main Street Plaza.
::grumblegrumble:: Next thing you know, we’ll have crosses on our steeples and speculate about who’ll be left behind at the Rapture. Note to self: Find nearest coven in case of emergency eject.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Family lore:
When she was young, my great grandmother snuck into a Holy Roller meeting near her home in North Carolina.
When a large woman got the gift of tongues and collapsed to the ground a bunch of men tried to get her up.
The minister stopped them by saying, “Brothers, leave her lay where Jesus flang her.”
January 30th, 2009 at 8:48 am
The Evangelicals hate everyone. Even their own.
“Brothers, leave her lay where Jesus flang her.”
Lol!
January 30th, 2009 at 9:23 am
You guys flang me on the floor laughing.
January 31st, 2009 at 7:26 pm
I was raised fundie evangelical, and I thought it was pretty weird. Even at the time.
January 31st, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Well, if you been flang by Jesus, you prob’ly been flang right where you ought to be.
‘Tis not for man to interfere with God’s divine flang.
That’s an awesome story! I think “flang” is officially my new favorite word.
You know, that video was a bit disturbing. Since when do Mormon meetings, especially the big conference-type ones, get all pepppy and energetic? Kind of disorders my universe. I mean, what’s next? KISS stops wearing makeup? Ozzy stops biting the heads off bats? Gene Simmons gets tongue reduction surgery?
February 1st, 2009 at 9:03 am
Hey, Zoe! Hey, Ing!
“Flang!”
Gene Simmons got tongue reduction surgery? How did I miss that?
(That video was disturbing, wasn’t it?)
February 1st, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I dunno if he did or not…but for the sake of all humanity, I hope so.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Why would Gene Simmons get tongue reduction surgery? Didn’t he know about all the women who fantasized about that tongue?
February 4th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Well, really, that’d a crime against nature.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
hahaha, his tongue being that long or him having reduction surgery?
February 20th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Uh…I made it maybe three seconds into that vid. The sweet Utah accent does NOT mix with the revival tent atmosphere. I wonder whose idea this was??
February 20th, 2009 at 11:14 am
SE, I don’t know, but I hope they don’t repeat it.
A) That is not our cultural identity and, whether I think our cultural identity is cheesy or not (which it is), it’s unique (ahem, peculiar) and it’s OURS.
B) The cultural identity that is being replicated is one that avows its hatred of us in a regular basis, so I’m not sure why we would co-opt it at the risk of diluting our culture.